


What kind of trash dragon

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Anyways, M/M, also grif kidnaps him and i gloss over that too?, background sucker and washloclina, but also i basically gloss over it bc this is a dumb au, simmons is p terribly injured when grif meets him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 13:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14426316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: Dragons keep hoards. This is a fact of life. Sarge collects weapons he steals from corpse strewn battlefields like some kind of bizarre red scaled vulture. Donut sleeps on top of a gigantic pile of gorgeous jewels every night that no one knows how he managed to procure. Kai likes stealing bolts of fabrics from human merchants, so colorful that even she can tell the difference between them, silky and soft to lie on. Tex has an entire cave full of gold anything. Jewelry, cutlery, picture frames, buttons, it went on and on. Caboose collects rocks. Just plain rocks, all in a big pile that he’ll hiss at Tucker over if he so much as glances at them.Dragons can really hoard anything. It doesn’t matter what it is, so long as they have it. Dragons need to have things, for some reason, specific things that they’ve decided that they love and will protect and keep no matter what. No one really knows why, although there are theories. The why of it doesn’t matter, doesn’t change fact. All dragons need hoards.“Bro, where the fuck is your shit?” Kai asks, looking pointedly around his empty cave.“Ate it,” he answers.“You’re not supposed to eat your hoard.”“Oops.”





	What kind of trash dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Gemi for brainstorming this with me!

Dragons keep hoards. This is a fact of life. Sarge collects weapons he steals from corpse strewn battlefields like some kind of bizarre red scaled vulture. Donut sleeps on top of a gigantic pile of gorgeous jewels every night that no one knows how he managed to procure. Kai likes stealing bolts of fabrics from human merchants, so colorful that even she can tell the difference between them, silky and soft to lie on. Tex has an entire cave full of gold anything. Jewelry, cutlery, picture frames, buttons, it went on and on. Caboose collects _ rocks. _ Just plain rocks, all in a big pile that he’ll hiss at Tucker over if he so much as glances at them. 

Dragons can really hoard anything. It doesn’t matter what it is, so long as they  _ have _ it. Dragons need to have things, for some reason, specific things that they’ve decided that they love and will protect and keep no matter what. No one really knows why, although there are theories. The why of it doesn’t matter, doesn’t change fact. All dragons need hoards. 

“Bro, where the fuck is your shit?” Kai asks, looking pointedly around his empty cave. 

“Ate it,” he answers. 

“You’re not supposed to eat your hoard.” 

“Oops.” 

Kai, not a fussy person by nature, still finds it in herself to make some huffy noises and ruffle her wings before she leaves to go and steal some satin or fuck Tucker or whatever. He very reluctantly gets it. He so reluctantly gets it that he has to roll over a few times and groan in protest at his own brain agreeing that he’s being a dumbass. 

Dragons that don’t have hoards grow listless and depressed. They don’t fly. They don’t move. They don’t eat. They don’t sleep. They just lie down and die eventually, if they don’t find a new hoard soon enough. 

He increasingly recognizes himself in all of that the longer he goes without a proper hoard. He thinks even Sarge might be starting to get worried. He should go out there. Find something to become utterly obsessed with so his stupid dragon brain can calm down already and he can go back to napping in the sun and eating whole sheep in peace. 

Ugggggggh. 

With a sigh so long and heartfelt a little burst of flame follows at the tail end of it, he gets up to his paws with a grunt and gets out of his cave. Gets a bit of a running start, and starts flapping. He’s more of a ‘drifting on the wind currents’ kind of guy. Getting started is always such a pain. But eventually, he’s in the air and he’s spiraling away from his territory, Red Flight’s territory, and Blue Flight’s territory. Away from his usual hunting grounds. It’s kind of risky, leaving known grounds like this… He might end up landing in some territorial asshole’s land and get mauled for his trouble. But it’s kinda hard to care about it, even though he know he should. 

Man, he really needs a fucking hoard. 

He closes his eyes and just drifts for a while, for many miles. He hasn’t caught sight of anything that’s catched his interest so far, so clearly he has to go off of the beaten trail a bit. But then when he opens his eyes and the sky is noticeably darker he realizes that he’s going to have to fly this entire distance back home at the end of the day as well, whether the winds are going in the right direction or not. He hurriedly banks, heading spiraling down for the nearest clearing. He’ll find what his new hoard is going to be  _ here.  _

(Or he could just lie down and die. It sounds kind of… peaceful. Ugh, no, don’t be so fucking dramatic.) 

He lands, and it sure is… a clearing. Full of grass. He considers for a moment if he could hoard grass, staring at it. 

Probably not. 

He looks around himself, as if he’s gonna happen upon a treasure trove full of porcelain or paintings out here in a forest-- a cave. There’s a cave, just big enough for him to squeeze into but not comfortably live in. He knows what that means. A dragon  _ absolutely _ lives there. Good cave real estate is hard to come by in these parts, after all, and there’s no way a decently sized one like this would be passed up. 

Which means that there’s definitely a hoard in there of some kind. 

No. No, no, he isn’t gonna _ steal another dragon's’ hoard.  _ He’s not that big of a douchebag. Also, not that stupid. That would just be begging for a vicious fight to the death, and Grif’s never liked fights, even if he is freakishly huge and a deceptively nimble and fast flier. 

Maybe he could just take  _ one thing, _ though. Just one thing, to get him started. They probably won’t attack him if he stays inside of his cave in the middle of his territory, full of his flight that’s ready to fight with him. Hell, even the neighbouring Blue Flight is willing to scrap on their side sometimes if it’s needed. 

Just one thing. Just a peek to see if it’s possible. Just--

He pokes his head inside and the dragon is already home. A startled noise escapes him, his wings flaring, and he hits his head on top of the cave ceiling. 

The strange dragon open its--his--eyes, sees him, and shrieks. 

“Shit!” he curses. “Shit, shit, shit--” but actually, this isn’t that big of a problem. No one can prove that he was gonna steal any hoard, nope. Also, this dragon is wispy and thin, much smaller than him, almost serpent like except for the limbs and the wings--

Where are his wings. 

He blinks, stops freaking out, and actually looks at what he’s seeing. This dragon’s maybe as big as a third of Grif, has a dark maroon coloration, has the chewed off remains of rope still tied to his limbs, long cuts all over the sides of his body, and still bloody stumps where his wings should be. He vaguely recognizes the type of dragon he is as the same kind Donut is. Donut has large, sparkly wings.  _ A commodity, _ he’d proudly called them.  _ Poachers would do  _ anything _ to get their grubby hands on them.  _

The crippled maroon dragon is also still freaking the fuck out at the sight of a giant strange dragon poking his head into his cave while he’s land bound and hurting, still licking his wounds after presumably narrowly escaping being tied down and--sawed into--

“Oh fuck, oh god,” he chants in a high, wavering voice, scrambling away further into the cave, trapped. 

Grif doesn’t know what the right thing is to do in this kind of situation, so he just follows his instincts instead. He opens his mouth wide. Leans in. The maroon dragon shrieks. He picks the dragon up in his mouth. He shrieks higher. 

He backs out of the cave, and here he is. Standing in a clearing with a panicking dragon in his mouth screaming his head off. 

Grif makes bad life choices. 

“I’M GONNA  _ DIE,” _ he howls. “PLEASE DON’T EAT ME.” 

Grif can’t let the dragon know that he won’t eat him because his mouth is full, so he just gets flying instead. Flying back home to his own cave, in the middle of a territory full of his flight that’s ready to fight for and with him, far away from wherever this dragon dragged himself away from a gang of poachers that had cut his wings off to sell them on the black market. It feels like the right thing to do. 

  
  


By the time he starts to descend, the maroon dragon has screamed himself hoarse, has gone limp with defeat. Grif doesn’t really know what he thinks is gonna happen. That Grif decided for some reason to eat him at home instead of where he found him? Whatever. He lands, trudges into his cave, lies down, drops the dragon out of his mouth and onto his front legs, and settles down, pinning the significantly smaller dragon underneath his chin. The maroon dragon squeaks like a chew toy. 

“... What are you doing?” he asks suspiciously and nervously after a long moment of nothing happening. 

“Sleeping,” Grif grunts. 

“... And then you’re gonna eat me?” 

“No,” he sighs. “Go to sleep, dumbass.” 

“How am I supposed to do that when you’re crushing me with your enormous weight,” the dragon hisses underneath his breath, angry but still apparently pretty scared. And probably hurting, too. Grif shifts until he’s certain he’s not pressing down on his wounds in any way. 

The dragon doesn’t say anything else, so neither does Grif. He sleeps. 

  
  


“What the fuck is this, bro?” 

“Go away, Kai,” he mumbles. 

_ “This _ isn’t gonna be your new hoard, is it?” 

He squints his eyes open, and looks at what she’s looking at. The maroon dragon, still wingless, still wounded, still looking scared shitless, is curled up tight underneath Grif’s chin and is now directing his I’m-gonna-get-eaten look at Kai instead. Apparently, having survived the night with him has somewhat marked Grif as safe in his mind. It’s weirdly gratifying. 

“She isn’t even that big, dude,” he tells him. She isn’t. Their mom got around, and Kai’s dad was significantly smaller than Grif’s. Sure, she’s still bigger and thicker than this guy, but she wouldn’t be able to eat him in just a few bites either. Dragon cannibalism isn’t even that common. 

Well. It's a little more common when the dragons are strangers. And when the victim is… weakened, like this. 

Grif defensively fences the maroon dragon against his chest with his foreleg without really thinking about it. 

“Seriously, who is that?” she asks. She brightens a little. “You get laid?” 

The maroon dragon makes a sputtering noise and burrows further into Grif, further away from Kai, which really isn’t a move that’s gonna dissuade her from her suspicions. She snickers. 

“No,” he says with a roll of his eyes. 

“Okay, this isn’t as good as you getting a hoard,” she says, grin a little dimmer. “But it’s still a step up. Good job, bro!” 

“I said no,” he groans. 

“Hey!” Kai says. “What’s your name!?” 

The dragon only stares at her, tense against Grif. 

“Okay, I’ll just call you Cute Lay, then--” ‘

“Simmons!” he barks. “I’m Simmons!” 

“I’m Grif,” Grif tells Simmons, it suddenly occurring to him that he should probably know this. 

Kai squints at him. “Not even introducing yourself to Cute Lay, first, bro? Not classy.” 

“I told you my name!” Simmons says snippily, awfully brave pressed up against Grif's bulk. 

“He’s just some guy I… grabbed.” That was… kinda maybe a little weird now that he thought about it? 

“Uh huh,” she says doubtfully. “Well, have fun with him, and get around to getting a hoard already!” 

And then she flies off into sunrise to go and wreck someone else’s day, apparently not having noticed Simmons’ lack of wings the entire time she was here. He stares after her for a moment, disgruntled. She could’ve at least not done this so  _ early. _

“... You don’t have a hoard?” Simmons asks him once she’s not visible any longer. He startles a little, and then looks down at him. 

“No,” he answers. 

“Why not?”

“Too much work.” He wonders if going without a hoard for too long was what made him just…  _ take _ Simmons last night. He’s heard stories before, about dragons not just going depressed without a hoard, but crazy too. He resolves not to think about it any longer, and then something occurs to him. “What about your hoard?” 

Simmons, who seems to be making some complicated incredulously agitated facial expressions at his answer, stops a little at his question. Something sad and a little crestfallen falls over him, his gaze and head dipping down and away, his tail curling around himself comfortingly. No, a _ lot _ crestfallen. He imagines his wings would be hugging him if they were still there. 

“They took it,” he mutters bitterly. “All of my books, and my wings, and they would’ve taken my teeth and my scales too if I hadn't…” 

He trails off into a heavy silence, and Grif feels like he’s eaten a whole flock of birds again without chewing properly, the birds still fluttering and flying around inside of him, stirring and pecking at things and making him feel sick. 

“Want some new books?” he asks, because a dragon always needs their hoard, nothing means anything without it. 

The dragon perks up curiously, skeptically. 

“How?” he asks. “It’s not like we can just  _ walk into town-- _ the only reason I had them in the first place was because I found this abandoned wagon on the side of the road.” 

“Come on, I’ll show you,” he says, and bends down to pick Simmons up in his mouth again. Simmons recoils with a shout. 

“OH NO YOU DON’T,” he shouts. 

Grif huffs. “Well, we’re not walking there.” 

“If dragonriders can do it,” Simmons says with a determined glint in his green eyes (like some of Donut’s jewels, shined to sparkle in the sunlight), “then so can we.” 

  
  


Simmons gets on top of his back, digs in too tightly with his claws, and keeps a running commentary of neurotic fear up the entire way to the little clearing where Grif flies them. He falls off when Grif lands. 

“WHAT KIND OF LANDING WAS THAT,” he demands ungratefully. What kind of trash dragon has Grif kidnapped. 

“Landings and liftoffs are my weakness.” He shrugs. 

“Those are the most important parts!” 

Locus gets out of his tent and Grif smiles. Locus is his favorite human, although Carolina is pretty good too. Wash is… fine. 

“Oh, fuck!” Simmons shouts, and then dives underneath Grif. 

Locus raises his eyebrow at them. 

“Locus, this is Simmons, some guy I took” he says. “Simmons, this is Locus, Red Flight’s human. We called dibs.”

“Some guy you took,” Locus repeats. 

“Your human,” Simmons repeats. 

“It’s a long story,” he answers both of them. “But the short one is that some assholes stole Simmons’ book hoard and he kind of needs some new ones to replace it.” 

Locus looks at him for a moment, and then turns around without a word. 

_ “Your _ human,” Simmons says again. “You know dragons can’t just  _ have _ humans, right? It’s the other way around. Oh god, did you see how many weapons he had on him? He’s gonna gather up a mob and, and--” 

Grif remembers that Simmons has had some pretty fucking awful experiences with humans pretty recently. “Relax, Simmons. Locus is cool! And so is his boyfriend and girlfriend. They’ve been hanging out here in our territory for years, and they haven’t done anything.” 

“Why would three humans want to live among dragons?” Simmons persists with anxious paranoia. 

“I think they might be deserters?” he says. “Not sure, not interested, didn’t ask. Also, I think having more than one mate might be a crime or something in their society.” 

“Why?” he asks, incredulous now. 

“Humans are weird.” He shrugs. 

And then Locus returns with about a dozen books in his arms. 

“This is all we have,” he says, “but I can ask Wash to get more on his next trip into town.” 

Simmons’ cat slit eyes go wide and dark at the books that Locus puts down at his feet. 

“See?” Grif cheerfully says. “I told you he was cool.” 

  
  


Simmons doesn’t just keep his books in a pile, or sigh at them with wonder, or sleep on them like any old dragon. He  _ reads _ them. Grif stares at him gingerly turning the pages with his sharp claws, a little amazed and a little weirded out. 

“One of your humans is really into soppy romances,” Simmons comments. 

_ “Our  _ humans,” Grif corrects unthinkingly, and then abruptly decides to get up and go and find some food. 

He brings back an entire cow for Simmons despite himself. 

  
  


“So I hear you’ve got a  _ mate,” _ Tucker says, delighted. 

“Who said that,” Grif says. “They’re a liar.” 

“Kai,” he says. 

“She’s got her brain in the gutter.”

“And Donut.” 

“Head in the clouds.” 

“And Caboose.” 

“Same problem.” 

“And Sarge.” 

“Most delusional living dragon I’ve ever met.”

“And Wash.”

“Humans misunderstand stuff all of the time.” 

“And Tex.” 

“She’s fucking with you.” 

“Grif,” Tucker says, exasperated. “There’s a dude living in your cave.” 

“What, really,” he says. “No way. For how long? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Oh, fuck off,” he says. “Well whatever, congrats even though you’re an asshole. Maybe he’ll help kick your ass into gear so you’ll finally get along with finding a new hoard. Who procrastinates something like  _ that?”  _

“It’s like you don’t even know me,” he says, instead of saying  _ no really _ or  _ it’s too late for that.  _

He’s a pretty lazy guy. Best put it off until he can’t any longer. 

  
  


Grif doesn’t let Simmons miss flying. He takes him with every time he goes flying, which is actually pretty often. He might like lazing around, but he likes flying too, the way the land spreads out underneath him, the way the wind rushes against his scales. He holds Simmons in his mouth and his claws, lets him climb onto his back and around his neck. 

He asks their humans to get at least one new book every time they go into town, and Simmons accepts it every time like it’s precious, pours over ever word. He stares at the ink with a desperate, fierce kind of adoration, and Grif thinks  _ that’s what it’s like to have a hoard.  _

“Why did you grab me?” he asks one day. 

“Seemed like you needed some help,” he replies, casually looking away like he’d never been looking in the first place. 

“I’m _ fine,” _ he says. 

“Sure,” he agrees, because his wounds  _ have _ closed up. But he’s still pretty small for a dragon, he still can’t fly away. “But there’s no reason for you to leave, right? All of your books are here.” 

Simmons grumbles but agrees, just like Grif knew he would. Honestly, dragons really are ridiculously dependent on their hoards, tied down like anchors. 

“Can you get rabbit tonight?” 

“As if,” he says, and then he goes out and scours the woods for rabbits that he can actually catch in time for hours. 

  
  


“Bro,” Kai says. “It was a  _ joke.”  _

“What was,” he says. 

“You can’t take another person as a hoard.” 

Grif doesn’t say anything. 

“You can replace gold or jewels or books if they get taken away from you or destroyed.” 

Grif doesn’t say anything. 

“There’s only one Simmons in the world.”

Grif doesn’t say anything. 

“What are you gonna do when he’s gone?” 

Grif doesn’t say anything. 

“This has gone  _ historically _ bad. Like, mom told us bedtime stories warning us against this.” 

“Since when has either of us listened to mom.” 

“Well _ I _ didn’t give myself an expiration date by deciding to hoard a person!” 

Grif rolls over and badly pretends to start snoring. Kai makes a frustrated noise and pushes at him. 

“It’s cruel and terrible of you to make me be the responsible one!” she shouts at him. “It’s unnatural and I don’t like it!” 

“Welcome to my entire childhood with you,” he says, and then goes back to snoring until she leaves him, calling him names the entire way. 

Grif makes bad life choices. He’s accepted this about himself. 

  
  


“--and I just don’t see why this character doesn’t just _ tell him _ how she feels!” Simmons says heatedly. Dragons can get pretty passionate about their hoards. Their humans have continued to mainly buy soppy romances. 

“Uh huh,” Grif says. 

“He might feel the same way!” he goes on. 

“Maybe,” Grif says. 

“She’ll never find out if she never takes the chance and asks him!” 

“Totally,” Grif says. 

“I just don’t  _ get it.”  _

“Well,” he says, and feels himself start to do something stupid. “What if he  _ doesn’t  _ feel the same way she does?” 

“It’s pretty clear that he does.” 

“But what if he doesn’t feel the same way  _ enough?”  _

Simmons looks at him. 

“What if,” Grif says, “she loves him an incredible amount. And there’s no way he loves her as much, even if he does love her.” 

“What kind of problem is that?” Simmons asks him. “If he doesn’t love her as much then… then he just needs a while to reach her level. And anyways. I’m pretty sure dating is pretty great even when it’s a little imbalanced, so long as they both really love each other.” 

“Mm,” Grif says, and then thinks about that for  _ days.  _

  
  


“Locus,” he says eventually. “Locus, help me.” 

“What,” Locus says. 

“How did you start dating your mates?” 

“Carolina made the first move.” 

“Goddamnit.” 

  
  


Simmons is pressed up against him underneath the shelter of his wing tonight. He’s warm. He keeps shifting position, restlessly. 

“Simmons,” he groans, whining. 

“I’m just getting comfortable!” 

“For the last two hours now.” 

Simmons, not having a comeback to that, instead pokes his head out from underneath Grif’s wing to glare at him with his glittering gem eyes. They shouldn’t be so pretty when they’re angrily narrowed at him. 

“You know you’re my hoard, right?” he asks, because he’s sleepy and stupid and in love and he’s been thinking about this for way too long now. 

Simmons blinks at him, startled, and then he dives back underneath Grif’s wing with a flustered hiss. “So!?” he says, which is not a rejection or disgust. 

Grif curls tighter around him, quietly ecstatic, encouraged. And then, because it’s already worked for him once tonight, “You know you’re my mate, right?” 

Sputtering and swearing, more familiar things from Simmons, but again: no rejection, no disgust. Grif encircles him and thinks _ I can’t believe that actually worked.  _


End file.
